hardly anything hurts here
front of the internet
finding out where it came
from:
personal
history,
recurrent
urinary tract infection,
external
beam radiation,
consumption
of aristolochia fangchi,
infection
by parasite,
caffeine,
saccharin,
hairdresser,
machinist,
printer,
painter, trucker,
rubber,
chemical, textile,
metal,
leather worker,
smoker
(greatest risk),
dark
tobacco, after that light,
then
second hand.
Caucasian,
male
over fifty,
worse
as you age.
Give up smoke. Get younger.
Have you brought your dressing gown? High eighties outside. I have not.
You’d best wear this. Hospital tie-at-back
shortie blue angel gown your NHS arse
sticks out you can’t go in there with your arse out I don’t care put on these
paper pants cover yourself there’s a love.
Cover my arse they won’t. Edges
flapping can’t reach or be bothered.
Goosebumps. Fear. You alright, Peter? You’re next, my love. You are.
There’s a good boy.
On the screen it’s like
miniature DynoRod
hunting my house drains
water running so it slides
headlamp camera scouring
plunger
At twenty meters they found a
ring-seal loose
have to dig that out.
On the notes when I browse
them
while the nurse is out
the sketch looks like a sea
anemone
still life: bladder with
flower
done in biro
sideways on the urine
analysis
Red cells present: too
many to number.
My father died in this
building
five floors up from where I
am now
sunlight streaming through
the glass
nurse with stockings clearly
visible
under her white dress
neither
he nor I bothering
him pulling hard for breath
and me
holding tight his hand. End game.
But this time, not yet.
I put the gown in the dumper
&
the pants in the bin.
Breathe again.
2003
2003
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